Quantum Tarot: the King Cups

nisaba

I've been subconsciously putting this one off because I simply don't actually get on all that well with Kings Cups types of people. I don't dislike them - I'm just a bit distant because I don't understand them, they are on a pretty strange wavelength to my way of thinking. Still, the ole shuffle-cut method of picking cards has confronted me with him, so here we go. At this stage I really have *no* idea what I'm about to say.

We see a card in a lovely blue-indigo shade for the most part, fading to a hint of green around the edges. The bottom of the card, despite the evident lack of gravity, has water lying around and rippling slightly as if it were subjected to earthlike gravity. One of the Cups we have seen elsewhere has been partly submerged in the centre of the card, hiding its stem and making it look more like an eerie glass pillar rising from the water - the archaeological remains, perhaps, of a long-gone crystal society, leaving behind their houses and their temples years ago when the water level rose to cover their town? Layered behind everything, a round-faced man looks calmly over our left shoulders as we look at him, a Mona-Lisa smile hinted at on his lips. Through it all, above the water where his head-shape but no features are reflected in the same blue, are uncountable stars (okay okay, I *know* someone is going to go off and count 'em to prove me wrong!).

I am fascinated by the subtitle given to this card: Ophiuchus. A Greek mythological figure I haven't heard of? Wonderful. I'll have research to do later, but that's beside the point now. Scientifically, we are looking at a constellation containing the second-closest star to us. "Associated with Aesclepius"? Student? Nother name for? Biographer? Associated with him, he may have taken on his qualities if not his persona. Aesculepius was originally a historical man who became deified over the centuries: he believed that washing battle wounds was important (although he did it for spiritual reasons, not reasons of hygiene - germs were unknown at the time), and he was aware of the therapeutic power of some plants, particularly parsley and garlic. In fact, to him is credited the coining of the expression "in need of parsley" as a euphemism for being so close to death's door that only the strongest remedies you have at your disposal could possibly help.

I already am starting to like this card - I think I can live with Kings of Cups as symbols of healers. Incidentally, the concept of a healer who is accompanied by a snake or snakes reminds me strongly of Vonda N. McIntyre's short story from years ago "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" concerning a shamanic woman who used chemically altered snake venom as a curative agent. She later expanded it into a full-length novel that I have around the house here somewhere, but the title of which eludes me for the moment. Snakes have mastery over death, which obviously implies that they can grant life, too.
 

Leo62

Ah the King of Cups, a right charmer. ;)

In the Quantum Tarot he is represented by the planet Neptune, with its gorgeous deep-blue colour and its association with the greco-roman god of the sea.

I guess the spiritual healer is the highest expression of the King of Cups, but he could just as easily turn out to be a drunk, a dodgy guru or a pathological liar (or all three!). But I guess those are more the reversed meanings...

My relationship with King of Cups types tends to be ambivalent. I invariably find them charming and good company, but I don't trust them one inch.

This is an expression of the protean nature of Neptune - like the sea, he can shift and change from one moment to another, and you never know quite who - or what - he is.
 

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nisaba

King of cups ... I was going to splutter at you ... I was *certain* he was Ophiuchus! Damn - thinking and night-time obviously don't mix. Thank you for not being too rude to me - I can feel your smile from here. Damndamndamndamn ...
 

Leo62

nisaba said:
King of cups ... I was going to splutter at you ... I was *certain* he was Ophiuchus! Damn - thinking and night-time obviously don't mix. Thank you for not being too rude to me - I can feel your smile from here. Damndamndamndamn ...
:D

Ophiuchus is the Page of Cups!
 

nisaba

Oh well, there you go. And regarding your earlier comment about the King having alcohol as a potential weakness, I had an alcoholic stepson for a number of years, who was much more a Knight. And in Scapini's Stained Glass Tarot, the Knight Cups shows a horse trying to make a run for it, the knight has slipped off the saddle but his ankles are tangled up in the reins, and while he is close to incapable, he is using that last desperate bit of alcoholic determination not to let the full Cup in his hand tip over and waste any of that wine! I really remember that - they'll stagger all over the house and crash into walls and fall over, but they *won't* spill a drop. Kings, in my humble view, are the ones who have grown past the Knight (who's just reached the age at which drinking is legal) and learnt to master his addictions.
 

Leo62

LOL well maybe the Page is the student drunk, the Knight is the crash-about-the-house drunk and the King is the functioning alchololic. })